The Wall Street Journal is stating that Adobe is abandoning the packaged software model in favor of Creative Cloud, and plans no further release of Creative Suit after the current 6.0. I think this goes beyond just getting rid of the shrink wrap, the article says that subscription will be the only model.

Shantanu Narayen, Adobe's chief executive, said creative professionals prefer features of the online service, he said, including the fact that it is constantly updated with new features. The company's subscription pricing also "scales the offering" from individual freelancers to the biggest enterprises.

"We wanted to align the company with the future of the creative process," Mr. Narayen said.

The article goes on to say the following:

Quote

Adobe is offering existing Creative Suite customers discounts of about 40% on the first year of service. After that an annual contract costs $50 a month for individuals. Corporate subscriptions include cloud storage and administrative tools and cost $70 a month per user.

This seems like terrible news, I certainly don't need another cable bill just for my regular use of Lightroom and only occasional use of Photoshop. There is no mention of what Lightroom or Photoshop alone will cost, but I don't like the idea of subscription. Maybe competition in the workflow space will solve the problem.

Forgetting the cost for a moment, how would Lightroom service even work? Half the time I use it, I am on my laptop away from the grid. Are we going to have to load our photos upstream to the cloud in order to work on them? That doesn't seem practical to me when you are dealing with a couple hundred images in LR.

Forgetting the cost for a moment, how would Lightroom service even work? Half the time I use it, I am on my laptop away from the grid. Are we going to have to load our photos upstream to the cloud in order to work on them? That doesn't seem practical to me when you are dealing with a couple hundred images in LR.

I don't believe they're talking about cloud-based apps. I think you download and install normally, but activation and ongoing use requires an active subscription. So if you decide to stop paying, you can no longer open your files in the app. That's my big concern with this model. I also use a lot of site-licensed software at work and it can be a problem running such software when you're away from an Internet connection when the software decides to "phone home", depending on implementation. That could be an issue for people like you taking LR to remote locations on a laptop.

Lots of questions, though, particularly because they're planning to charge $10/mo for a single app and $50/mo for the full boat ($30/mo for the first year for upgraders). That's like buying a new copy of LR every 1-1.5 years, which I don't always do, and $360-600/yr is a LOT more than I pay now for all my Adobe software (PSE, Dreamweaver, etc).

Guess I'll be milking LR 4/PSE 10 for a long while, and hoping they still provide free Adobe Raw and/or DNG converters if I ever need a new camera.

woollybear

Software providers have been drooling over a subscription model for years. They have a semi- version of that now. If you read the EULA you will find you don't own most software you just plunked down $$'s on.

I don't know sales numbers, I assume before they do something like this they analyze it with some care. That said, there was quite an outcry when they tried to change the upgrade path the last go round. They were going to offer upgrade pricing for current version users only, all other upgrades would be full price. Didn't follow it super closely but I don't believe that worked out too well for them. So maybe they don't care or don't know what will happen.

However, I find it hard to believe they won't lose massive numbers of customers. They will most definitely lose me.

Count me in among the unhappy customers. I think this is going to backfire on Adobe.

I consistently bought the upgrades (although I usually waited for their promotional deals). Once I'd bought into the system, it was affordable to upgrade. Frankly, I tended to overbuy (purchasing the entire Creative Suite when I seldom use anything but Photoshop, InDesign and Dreamweaver.)

Like some of the stories have said, I'll probably be one of those that subscribes for the first year at the promotional pricing, but once it goes to full price I'll take a very close look at renewal. I think Adobe may find that this plan actually results in less revenue.

That sucks. I'm still using CS3... perhaps I should shell out for CS6 before they move to this subscription model.

I am among those people. I think I have CS4....yep, that is it...and might have upgraded next version. I was just testing LR in the beta version to see if I should move from DPP to it but I find PS Elements does a good job for me in cataloging and altering pictures so far. I also don't like subscription based software. Guess I am just too old for these new fangled notions......get off of my lawn you whipper-snappers.

The issue with subscription software is that Adobe holds your images ransom. Stop paying, and those 200,000 PSD files can't be edited, or all the edits in your lightroom catalog are locked up and held for ransom. Of course, you can hurry up and save them as jpegs, tiff, or dng.

Forgetting the cost for a moment, how would Lightroom service even work? Half the time I use it, I am on my laptop away from the grid. Are we going to have to load our photos upstream to the cloud in order to work on them? That doesn't seem practical to me when you are dealing with a couple hundred images in LR.

I don't believe they're talking about cloud-based apps. I think you download and install normally, but activation and ongoing use requires an active subscription. So if you decide to stop paying, you can no longer open your files in the app. That's my big concern with this model. I also use a lot of site-licensed software at work and it can be a problem running such software when you're away from an Internet connection when the software decides to "phone home", depending on implementation. That could be an issue for people like you taking LR to remote locations on a laptop.

Lots of questions, though, particularly because they're planning to charge $10/mo for a single app and $50/mo for the full boat ($30/mo for the first year for upgraders). That's like buying a new copy of LR every 1-1.5 years, which I don't always do, and $360-600/yr is a LOT more than I pay now for all my Adobe software (PSE, Dreamweaver, etc).

Guess I'll be milking LR 4/PSE 10 for a long while, and hoping they still provide free Adobe Raw and/or DNG converters if I ever need a new camera.

Brave new world.

This is correct, I currently use Adobe Cloud for current release of all Adobe products, you download & install what you need as you need it, the product is then on your Hard Drive just like the DVD you purchased, you again download any updates as part of the subscription model you paid for. Each year you pay the subscription.

It works & works well, I'm completely Happy, but there's a caveat, the current system of Adobe Cloud is designed for Companies that require the use of more than 1 Licensed user, it's not really designed for the individual user, hence the +USD$800 price Tag.

In Asia in particular the most cloned software is Adobe, you can buy a full copy of CS6 Suite of the side of the road in China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam etc, for $10 Bucks, so you can see why companies like Adobe are heading towards this Cloud Based Subscription Model, it's inevitable gentlemen, and Ladies.

I dont know for sure, but I would envisage Adobe creating a single user service of the Cloud at some point in the next 12 months, I would think prior to CS7, and I cant se the pricing not being more flexible for the single user, wouldn't make sense to try to charge a single user 800 bucks a year, as has been stated, Adobe will loose a huge amount of Business, and Adobe before all else, are about business & profits while providing a service.

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